Greater interest not ?To tell the truth?

RARELY DOES it happen that a reader is satisfied with the motion picture made from a bestseller. Its adaptation into a play is all the more difficult.

indiaUpdated: Jan 16, 2006 18:02 IST

Dileep Chinchalker None

RARELY DOES it happen that a reader is satisfied with the motion picture made from a bestseller. Its adaptation into a play is all the more difficult. However, like Sanand members packing the Ravindra Natya Grah over Saturday and Sunday, Agatha Christie, too, would have had little to complain about when watching the play ‘Khara Sangayache Tar’ (To tell the truth) based on her thriller ‘Witness for the prosecution’.

In the preponderance of Grishams, Archers and Coelhos, Uday Narkar fished out a classic from the mid twentieth century which had no action, mostly courtroom drama. Director Vijay Kenkare did a sensible thing by choosing Vikram Gokhale as the criminal lawyer.

It saved time on developing the character of a stalwart. Casting Supriya Pilgaonkar was brilliant and a test of the real director in him. The mischievous daughter-in-law of the popular tele serial went ahead with all her poise and theatrical acumen to portray the young vulnerable wife, whose evidence could make or break her husband’s life – she certainly did both with great aplomb.

A wife’s testimony is not acceptable in the court of law. Nitin, a young unemployed mechanic, is accused of killing a rich celibate woman. He does not have a convincing alibi to prove that he was far removed from the site of the ghastly crime, but was with his wife at that hour. All the circumstantial evidence points at him. Even the most successful lawyer views him as a hopeless case.

It becomes a foregone conclusion when the wife of the accused, Ayesha, turns hostile. Her revelation about her being the wife of some other man from Gulf country and never Nitin’s wife legally is enough to break the accused under normal circumstances. Ayesha is no ordinary woman. Her uncanny planning and its superb execution by Supriya turn the tide and saves Nitin from the gallows.

How dramatically a devoted wife establishes herself as an unfaithful turncoat and uses these credentials to take the blame upon her, is the scheming genius of the author. The credit for the impact with which it hits home goes to Supriya, leaving the audience and the illustrious lawyer gawking.

It was undoubtedly the best theatrical performance in recent times involving mystery and a plot developing gradually into a full-blown climax. It is unethical and in the interest of those contemplating reading the original work not to give away the murderer.

The mysteries of whose identity can be, however, unlocked by the universal master key for the viewer – always let go of the most suspicious characters and catch hold of the apparently innocent one.